The Bloustein School has been ranked No. 4 in the United States in the latest survey of the nation’s top graduate programs in urban planning by Planetizen, a Los Angeles-based planning and development network. The Bloustein School improved four spots since Planetizen’s initial survey was published in late 2006.

The ranking established Rutgers among the nation’s elite universities for planning and public policy. The ranking is as follows:

Institution

Ranking

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

1

University of California, Berkeley

2

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

3

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

4

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

5

Cornell University

6

Harvard University

7

University of California, Los Angeles

8

University of Southern California

9

University of Pennsylvania

10

“The Bloustein School continues on the rise nationally for our leadership in urban planning according to our peers in the classroom and the workplace,” said Bloustein School Dean James W. Hughes. “The quality of our students, the job prospects open to them upon graduation and their satisfaction with their experience at Rutgers all helped in moving us up in the rankings. We prove our value day in, day out to the State of New Jersey through the quality of our research and the professionalism of the individuals we prepare for the workforce.”

Planetizen conducted the study by surveying planning professors and practitioners, current students and recent graduates. It developed the guide to provide prospective students a credible comparison of graduate schools.

In addition to the overall rankings, Planetizen asked planning professors and practitioners to rate the best graduate schools in 15 specialty areas. The Bloustein School was named in nine of those areas, including: